Deadly Loneliness
by PoisonMistress
Summary: In a world where soul mates are critical to staying alive, even Sherlock Holmes in interested in finding his. But when the non-bonded illness takes him, it is up to Mycroft to try and save his brother. - Contest Entry


_So this is my entry to fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic's competition. Its an AU in which at about thirty five, you die if you aren't bonded. Everybody has a unique band of colour on their wrist, which matches with only one other person's. Sherlock doesn't find his bond, so Mycroft tries._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Mycroft sat by a bleeping machine, not too close to the bed and its occupant. A doctor stood at the end of said bed, taking notes and the machinery blipped and whirred, relaying figures on a screen. Mycroft knew enough about this kind of thing to realise that his baby brother was in a bad way.

It had been coming on a long while. Of course it had. Without the bond, you died. And Sherlock hadn't found his soul mate.

He had been sitting down at his desk, and the day was acting as if it were perfectly normal. Some allies had been made, and others lost. Perfectly and brilliantly normal.

Then he got a call from the man Sherlock helped. Lestrade, it was. A call which had called him immediately down to the hospital, where his baby brother lay in the aforementioned bad way.

He had collapsed at a crime scene. Upon checking his pulse, Lestrade had spotted his bond-band. It had been jet black, with tiny red cracks appearing on the surface. Even somebody with only the most basic knowledge knew what had happened. Sherlock's time without a bond was up.

He had been whisked to hospital, and now Mycroft sat, torn between being the uptight brother, and letting some tears fall over Sherlock's prone body.

Without a bond, it was possible to live up to thirty five years, more if you didn't pine over your lost bond. The bond-band was a ring on colour which encircled everybody's left wrist. The side of the heart. The colour was unique, and the only way to know if you had really found your bond.

But without finding the bond, your body died away, and the band turned black to let the world know that you were loveless, and soon to be lifeless.

Mycroft hated it. Hated that his brother hadn't found his bond. He even hated Sherlock's bond. Where was he or she? What were they doing?

He only knew one thing, they weren't dead.

Upon the death of your bond, a band would turn milky grey. If you knew them, and had bonded, you generally died within hours. It was a strange system that nature had created, and one that Mycroft cursed.

Sherlock's bond had remained hidden, and condemned the oh-so young man to an early death. And it wasn't for lack of trying. Sherlock had hunted most of his early twenties. Whether it was in the hopes of finding love, or staying alive longer, Mycroft didn't know. But Sherlock searched diligently.

To no avail.

At around twenty six, he fell into the trap of drugs, and gave up hope.

The time he'd told Mycroft he hated his bond was scorched into the government employee's memory. He had been hazy with drugs, and that was when Mycroft realised that whoever Sherlock's bond was, he didn't deserve the consulting detective.

They had driven Sherlock to drugs, and now that time of despair was coming back to haunt them.

The doctors had told him that Sherlock had four and half months left to live. He would have had six, if he hadn't used drugs. But they'd done irreparable damage.

And so, all of these bad choices and misfortunes had led to Sherlock lying, his bond-band slowly turning back to the stormy sea green it had been. It was a lovely colour, so different from Mycroft's lurid peach orange.

The doctor apparently didn't know what to say.

"If his bond was found, could he..." Mycroft queried.

"Yes. He could be bonded." the doctor said anxiously.

Mycroft nodded once, and dismissed the man with a glance, turning his full attention to Sherlock. After claiming he hated his bond, Sherlock had been weaned off the drugs, and came to an even worse conclusion. That he simply didn't need a bond, and nobody would want him. He decided that sociopaths didn't need bonds, and that somewhere out there, there was another outcast with a matching bond-band, who didn't need him.

How wrong he had been.

Mycroft sat with his unresponsive brother for as long as he could, then left to finish up some business. Anthea was put in charge of telling him when Sherlock awoke. A task he would only trust with her.

At noon the next day, the call came, and Mycroft rushed back to the private hospital. Sherlock, strictly speaking, was not pleased to see him. They had been at odds ever since Mycroft found his bond at twenty one, just when Sherlock's great search began.

"I don't need you Mycroft." Sherlock snarled, or rather, croaked.

He was white as a sheet, and was clutching his wrist, where undoubtedly pangs of pain were shooting up his arm.

"Sherlock..."

"And I don't need my stupid bond either. I can get through this. I don't need him." he said, gritting his teeth.

All empty words. Mycroft was eventually forced to leave. Ten of Sherlock's precious days slipped by, and each day he grew paler and paler, only welcoming Lestrade and a case. Even with one foot in the grave, he insisted on getting cases.

Then on the eleventh day, there was a relapse. Sherlock was feverish and shaky, and not in his usual frame of mind.

"How long have I got?" he asked steadily, no hostility lacing his voice.

Mycroft resisted the urge to take a spidery, frail hand in his own.

"Just over four months." he replied.

Sherlock gave a sharp nod.

"I wan you to find him. My bond. I want... I want you to try, for me." he said, eyes closed.

Mycroft didn't answer, slightly stunned.

"Mycroft! Please, do this. I can't die. I... I've to much to do."

He had expected the 'I'm to great to die' line, but it was near enough.

"Fine." Mycroft said, reaching out for Sherlock's hand.

Half an hour later, a sample had been taken. Sherlock was insistent that the person they were looking for was male. Sometimes it was possible to feel your bond through a connection. Some people could even say their names.

After the sample, Sherlock fell into a semi comatose state, eyes flickering behind his lids. It wasn't the pale colour, or the twitching limbs that scared Mycroft most. No. It was the fact Sherlock had asked for his help.

He must be scared.

The next day, Mycroft gave instructions to both Anthea and Lestrade, and boarded the first plane to Germany. It somehow seemed like a good place to start. He was fairly sure that Sherlock's bond wasn't in Britain, but he sent out some of his drones just in case.

And so the great search began.

Mycroft had decided that his best chance was hospitals, and so began to search. And search. And search.

It wasn't quite as difficult as going through every hospital in Germany. Each country had a database of critically ill, non-bonded people. And their band colour.

But because of a law he himself had introduced, people could only look at bond-bands if they were the in same country as the inmate. It had been meant to stop scams. Now it was just killing his baby brother.

As he trawled through lists, receiving negatives each time, using the legwork he so hated. Three days later, he realised how much Sherlock meant to him.

He meddled, and annoyed, and insulted. But he was always there. He couldn't die.

All the matches and Germany was negative.

Next up was Poland. They, thankfully, seemed to have many less non-bonded criticals than Germany. It was while he, with the help of several more drones, was filing through the possible matches that he received the first call. The first update.

Sherlock had four months left.

His mind was continually slipping. His coma like states were increasing. He rambled while unconscious, and was apparently quite docile when awake. Lestrade was still giving him cases, but Sherlock was having difficulty holding the files.

It broke Mycroft's heart a fraction.

And somewhere out there, there was another person, suffering the same things.

From Poland, Mycroft travelled to Czech Republic. They were a lot more edgy, and he had to use some of his British government powers to gain access to certain lists.

Not a single match.

Italy prove more hopeful. A match was found. Only eighty percent positive, but it was positive. Mycroft rushed down to the hospital where the man was being kept alive, praying with all his might that this would be he one.

The man had about the same amount of time left as Sherlock. And to the eye, their bond-bands matched. But upon a digital reading, it was failure.

Another call that evening told him that Sherlock was loosing his sight slightly. If it deteriorated for too long, he would loose it altogether.

Greece was the next country to be combed with a nit-pick. Two matches, one female, which Mycroft checked just in case, and the other had already found a bond, but the website had failed to be updated.

He couldn't help but feel something like anger to the man who had raised his hopes. The man who had found his match.

Each country list only had around five hundred people. Circumstances generally brought people together. The bond-pull, some called it.

Greece led to Turkey, and then Turkey to Syria. It was further than Mycroft really wanted to go, but he was getting desperate. He had given up his one man search, and got his top workers to start scouring America and Africa, as well as the parts of Europe he'd missed out.

In a way, he felt bad for giving up, as it were. He had wanted to do it alone. But if his pride was going to stand in the way of Sherlock's life, then he didn't deserve to have found his own bond.

Three months to go now. People were having to read the cases aloud to Sherlock, as his vision was too poor to read it himself. Mycroft kept completely silent as Lestrade relayed all these details.

"I'm glad you're not here. Nobody deserves to see him like this." the DI said at the end.

"I feel I should be at his side." Mycroft said, surprised the words had come out his mouth.

"No. You have to save him."

The line cut dead, and Mycroft stayed up all night. He looked nothing like the man that had left a month ago. Bags under his eyes. Dirt on his clothes.

Is Sherlock worth it? Once, just once, the awful thought passed his mind.

In these desert lands, where war reigned, there were far less non-bonded people. Iraq had only ninety six on the critical list. None of them matched up.

Iran drew a blank too. Now, in airports and custom offices, people stared, asked if he was alright. They did not scurry away. He didn't have that air of supreme leadership.

He was beginning to wonder if Sherlock's bond was still alive. Perhaps the proclaimed sociopath had somehow managed to isolate himself from feelings so effectively that he had severed the bond.

In Pakistan, he was told that doctors had reassessed Sherlock's state, and given him five weeks. Typical. Anthea briskly told him that Sherlock was no longer able to complete cases, as he was effectively out of his mind. There were only moments when he was lucid.

Some girl from the morgue Sherlock would soon be inside, his house keeper, Lestarde and Anthea kept up a constant watch.

Mycroft passed out on the sofa that day. The first time in years that he had slept in a suit.

But Pakistan offered a brief ray of hope. A hospital had a inmate which offered a seventy percent positive charge.

But then again, Mycroft would have visited a hospital if it had a one percent positive patient.

The hospital was full of the ill and the sick. Of course it was, it was a hospital. But there was something about the dreary little place that made Mycroft shudder. It was not a patch on the clinical hospital that his brother was currently encased in.

He was led through barely clean corridors, and into a room. Yet another non-bonded man lay. This one wasn't as far gone as the rest, simply lying there, waiting.

It was a cruel world.

Mycroft sat down, and sent for a bonding test. The man surveyed him, and he examined the man. They didn't speak.

The test came.

It failed.

"I'm sorry." the man said, as Mycroft suppressed disappointment.

"I am too."

And he wasn't talking about the fact another of the threads of hope which kept Sherlock alive had been severed. This man would probably die here, alone. He would never know what love truly was.

The phone calls became more frequent and urgent. Lestrade always had an apology to say at the end. Anthea was even brisker than usual, trying to keep things businesslike.

In Afghanistan, it was neigh on impossible to access the records. Mainly because there were barely any records. Most had been killed. Luckily, all hospitalized patients had their bond-band sampled, whether they were dying from the lack of a bond, or a fatal bullet wound.

In the barren country, there was not a single match. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere. Mycroft prepared the leave, go back to England. He had done his best.

But his best hadn't been good enough.

There were several possibilities. Sherlock's bond could have died. Or he could not yet have fallen into the non-bonded state. Either way, it was too late for Sherlock.

Generally, nature or God, whoever was in charge of the universe, kept bonds in the same country. But there was always exceptions.

The planes from Afghanistan to home were long, and full of bitter thoughts. He ignored is phone, because he didn't want to know about how Sherlock couldn't remember his own name. He didn't want to know about how he had a minuscule three weeks left.

He had always expected Sherlock to die young. But he had always thought it would be from an enemy which wasn't his total loneliness.

He actually wished that Sherlock had fallen to a bullet instead of the curse and blessing that was bonds.

Stansted was a nightmare. People yelling, babies screaming, crashes, bangs. It brought of a terrible migraine, but for once in his life, Mycroft didn't stop to get some tablets, instead going straight to the hospital.

If he were to go back to the Diogenes, he was sure none of them would recognise him. An abstract thought amidst a whirlwind of worry, grief and other emotions he'd once sworn never to feel.

Anthea was waiting on the steps. For once she wasn't holding her phone. Her face was, however, perfectly blank.

Silently Mycroft passed her, hurrying up into the waiting room. They told him he had to wait. Only Anthea patting his arm in a most unprofessional way stopped him from making an equally unprofessional scene.

He sat down, on a hard, plastic chair. Anthea sat down beside him.

"Anything I should know?" he asked, levelly.

"He may not recognise you."

Half an hour later, he was admitted into the ward. There were several other occupied beds in the room, but Sherlock's had been shoved in one corner.

He sat down, and examined the face of his brother. It was lax and listless, his silver eyes slightly clouded. He was even more pale, and even more skeletal than before. Cheekbones jutted, and skin stretched painfully tight over slender hands.

He didn't take the hand which was lying inches away. He had failed his baby brother.

"I'm sorry." he whispered.

Mycroft was immensely glad that he hadn't been around to see the deterioration.

At the sound, Sherlock's eyes moved over to him, still unseeingly however. He must be hating it. Feel so helpless and scared.

The last time he'd thought of his brother as helpless and scared was almost ten years ago when the drug abuse started.

Lestrade took over from him a few hours later, and practically ordered him to get some sleep. So he returned home, where his bond was waiting. She was very forgiving, and greeted him only with a hug.

Still, the whole point of bonds was that you matched each other perfectly, and his bond was perfectly happy to let him run the country, and clean up after his destructive brother.

The next day, Mycroft went in again. There was no point going back to the office, as he'd been away several months. A few weeks would make no difference.

Lestrade was still there, talking to the man who's bed neighboured Sherlock's. He said a gruff hello, and slumped down beside Sherlock.

Lestrade seemed torn, but continued to to talk in hushed tones.

"Who's that?" asked Sherlock.

His voice was not cracked and broken, just dull and lifeless.

"It's Mycroft, Sherlock. I didn't find anybody..."

Sherlock's eyebrows contracted slightly.

"I didn't expect you to. They don't need me. I'm the one that has succumbed to this weakness."

That tiny split in his heart wrenched open at those words.

Mycroft popped out for lunch a few hours later. Sherlock hadn't spoken, and he hadn't felt any need to break the awkward silence.

Then he got a call.

As he pulled the bleeping mobile from his pocket, he expected bad news.

Doctors were always getting timings wrong. And if Sherlock had... gone while he was away, Mycroft was sure he'd never forgive himself.

But it wasn't bad news. Doctors had found a bond-band match inside the hospital itself. Inside the same ward that Sherlock had been existing in for the the last weeks of his life.

Mycroft wasn't sure whether to kill the idiot who was in charge of matching bonds, or give him a million pounds.

He hurried back. It was the man Lestrade had been talking too. He'd spotted the distinctive green bond-band and asked for a test.

Mycroft sat beside the possible match, waiting for the verifying results. The man, an invalid from Afghanistan had been here three months. Three months, he'd been beside his bond. Fate always did bring bonds together.

He'd been shot, and since there was apparently no danger in the bond area of life, doctors had failed to take a sample.

The man was sitting up in bed, staring across to where Sherlock lay. There was a silence between him and Mycroft, but it wasn't the same as the awkward one between the two brothers.

"I never thought to ask for a sample," the man said. "Even though I'm thirty six, I've never had any trouble. Doctors reckon it's the trauma."

"Hmm."

That was all Mycroft could think of to say. He was probably more jittery with nerves than the man.

"I'm John, by the way." he said.

He seemed nice enough, if a bit simple.

"Mycroft."

John smiled.

It was an agonising hour before the results came through. John talked quite a lot, perhaps grateful of some company.

Then the results arrived.

A doctor stood at the end of John's bed with a piece of paper, he read on a load of rubbish, and then said the fateful words. The words which would save or destroy Sherlock Holmes.

"It's a positive match, with seven percent chance of error. We're afraid that Mr. Watson's band hasn't returned to its usual colour after the trauma of-"

But Mycroft wasn't listening any more, he turned to look at John.

"Will you risk it?" he asked.

John hesitated. There was a lot more risk for him. If that seven percent came back to haunt them, John would almost certainly die. Sherlock was doomed at any rate, so Mycroft had already considered it a chance worth taking.

Bonding with somebody who wasn't your actual bond left disastrous consequences in its wake. It could seal the death of up to four people.

Mycroft waved the doctor away, and waited with baited breath. Who'd have thought the elder Holmes would find it in his heart to care so much.

"I... Well I always thought it would be a woman." John mumbled, flushing slightly.

Mycroft sighed. Typical sexuality crisis.

"I'll leave you to think?"

John nodded, and Mycroft swept out the ward. He told Lestrade about the match, and all of the other people who considered themselves Sherlock's friends.

Later that day, Mycroft returned.

John had decided.

He would do it.

* * *

Sherlock woke with a dry mouth, and stomach cramps. Despite this, it was the best he'd felt in several months, or however long it had been.

There were lots of people standing over him, but they were all silent. What was best though was that he could see.

He let his eyes run over them. Mycroft, when had he arrived? Lestarde, Mrs. Hudson, two doctors, and somebody sitting on the chair right beside him. He was tempted to shuffle away, but something said that he shouldn't.

So he didn't.

The stranger was holding his own wrist, which was when Sherlock became aware of a shooting, darting, splitting pain in his own left wrist. He winced, but refused to grasp it. Not when Mycroft was around.

He tried to remember what he was actually doing in a hospital bed, but it was all frustratingly fuzzy. Apart from the memory of dread and fear, as well as the loss of his sight, he couldn't remember very much at all.

Not at all comforting.

"Sherlock?" he'd recognise that pompous voice anywhere.

He looked over at Mycroft. Despite being the most hateful man ever to walk and rule Britain, he should have explained everything by now.

"Sherlock, this is John Watson." he said, gesturing to the sandy haired man.

Sherlock vaguely wondered why he should care.

"He's your bond."

* * *

Recovery was slow, for both of them. But after two weeks, they had moved back into Sherlock's lodgings.

Things were not perfect. Sherlock felt incredibly awkward around John, and was constantly berating himself for being such an awful bond.

In turn, John hated being unable to do much because of his psychosomatic leg. Sherlock had resolved to fix it as quickly as possible.

But there were spots of hope. John didn't think Sherlock's deducing made him a freak. Sherlock didn't care about the ugly scars or the nightmares.

Most bonds got several months of time together, before the bonding ceremony. But because of the circumstances, the bond had been made without either knowing the other.

This always led to difficulty's. The bond made them want to stay together, but Sherlock had no emotional reason to remain with John.

Which meant that John got left behind all the time, and that in turn led to numerous arguments.

They sat, intertwined on the sofa, foreheads pressed together after a particularly vicious fight.

"I'm sorry." said John.

Sherlock wouldn't say it. He never did. But he would always accept John's apology with a small nod.

They would sit for several hours, pressed together, talking when there was reason to talk.

Recovery would be slow, but in the horizon, there was the promise of a real life. Without the pangs of loneliness, or the wistful thinking about a long lost bond.


End file.
